It turns out that having honest and vulnerable conversations about sex is the ultimate taboo. These conversations cross-pollinate with other vulnerabilities: we may have to share that our body is behaving differently to what we deem 'normal', that our gender or race issues have come up in our relationships, that we no longer love or feel attracted to our partner. All this related stuff can be painful; it's virtually impossible to not get flooded with it when we get vulnerable around sex.